Albert Baggarley

Born: 1884 - Hackney, Middlesex.
Died: 1917 - Baghdad, Iraq.

Debt of Honour Register In Memory of
A Baggarley Private 6685 2nd Bn., Dorsetshire Regiment who died on Tuesday 27 March 1917, Aged 32 .

Additional Information: 
Son of Emma Baggarley, of 78, Pownall Rd., Queen's Rd., Dalston, London, and the late Benjamin Baggarley.

Cemetery: Baghdad (North Gate) War Cemetery, Iraq Grave or Reference Panel Number: XXI. Y. 2.
Location: Baghdad (North Gate) War Cemetery is 800 metres beyond the North Gate of the City of Baghdad on the south-eastern side of the road to Baguba.

Visiting Information:
The Commission strongly advises that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office should be contacted before attempting to visit Iraq.

Their details are as follows:
Travel Advice Unit Consular Division Foreign and Commonwealth Office Old Admiralty Building London SW1A 2AF Tel: 0207 008 0232/0233 Fax: 0207 008 0164 Website: http://www.fco.gov.uk/ Opening Times: Monday to Friday 09.30 - 16.00

Historical Information: In 1914, Baghdad was the headquarters of the Turkish Army in Mesopotamia. It was the ultimate objective of the Indian Expeditionary Force 'D' and the goal of the force besieged and captured at Kut in 1916. The city finally fell in March 1917, but the position was not fully consolidated until the end of April. Nevertheless, it had by that time become the Expeditionary Force's advanced base, with two stationary hospitals and three casualty clearing stations. The North Gate Cemetery was begun In April 1917 and has been greatly enlarged since the end of the First World War by graves brought in from other burial grounds in Baghdad and northern Iraq, and from battlefields and cemeteries in Anatolia where Commonwealth prisoners of war were buried by the Turks. At present, 4,142 Commonwealth casualties of the First World War are commemorated by name in the cemetery, many of them on special memorials. Unidentified burials from this period number 2,729. The cemetery also contains the grave of Lieutenant General Sir Stanley Maude, Commander-in-Chief of the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force, who died at Baghdad in November 1917 and the memorial to the 13th Division which he commanded. A memorial to the 6th Battalion Loyal (North Lancashire) Regiment was brought into the cemetery from the banks of the Diyala River in 1947. During the Second World War, Baghdad was again an objective of Commonwealth forces. The 20th Indian Infantry Brigade reached the city from Shaiba by the Euphrates route on 12 June 1941 and the 21st Indian Infantry Brigade, part of the 13th Duke of Connaught's Own Lancers, together with the 157th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery, arrived on 19 June via the Tigris. An advanced base was established later near the city and remained in use until 1946. Most of the 296 Commonwealth servicemen of the Second World War buried in the cemetery died of illness or by accident when serving with Paiforce. Again, a number of the graves were brought in from other burial grounds. Within the cemetery is the Baghdad (North Gate) (Khanaqin) Memorial, commemorating 104 Commonwealth and 439 Polish servicemen of the Second World War buried in Khanaqin War Cemetery which, owing to difficulty of access, could not be properly maintained. A memorial has also been erected at Khanaqin. The North Gate Cemetery also contains 127 war graves of other nationalities from both wars, 100 of them Turkish, and 41 non-war graves.

Ernest Sidney Baggarley

Born: 1892 - Lambeth, Surrey.
Died: 1916 - Somme, Picardie, France.
 

A private who fell along with 50 killed, 290 wounded and 188 missing other ranks and 6 killed, 5 wounded, and 5 missing officers, on the first day of the battle of the Somme, from 1/9th Battalion, London Regiment, Queen Victoria Riffles.

Ernest was born in the Lambeth Workhouse, on 12th November 1892, to his unmarried parents Rebecca Baggarley and Henry Turner, hence Ernest was given his mother's surname.

In both the 1901 and 1911 Census returns, where his surname is recorded as Turner, Ernest is shown as living with his parents in Hackney and Camberwell respectively. These returns also indicate that his parents were married but no marriage record or certificate has ever been located and Rebecca's Father, John Baggarley, 1834 to 1913, went to the effort of adding a codicil to Rebecca's death certificate, of November 1911, swearing that his daughter had never married.

In the 1911 Census Ernest is recorded as a Card Boxmakers Assistant.

On 1 July 1916, supported by a French attack to the south, thirteen divisions of Commonwealth forces launched an offensive on a line from north of Gommecourt to Maricourt. Despite a preliminary bombardment lasting seven days, the German defenses were barely touched and the attack met unexpectedly fierce resistance. Losses were catastrophic and with only minimal advances on the southern flank, the initial attack was a failure. In the following weeks, huge resources of manpower and equipment were deployed in an attempt to exploit the modest successes of the first day. However, the German Army resisted tenaciously and repeated attacks and counter attacks meant a major battle for every village, copse and farmhouse gained. At the end of September, Thiepval was finally captured. The village had been an original objective of 1 July. Attacks north and east continued throughout October and into November in increasingly difficult weather conditions. The Battle of the Somme finally ended on 18 November with the onset of winter. In the spring of 1917, the German forces fell back to their newly prepared defences, the Hindenburg Line, and there were no further significant engagements in the Somme sector until the Germans mounted their major offensive in March 1918. The Thiepval Memorial, the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, bears the names of more than 72,000 officers and men of the United Kingdom and South African forces who died in the Somme sector before 20 March 1918 and have no known grave. Over 90% of those commemorated died between July and November 1916. The memorial also serves as an Anglo-French Battle Memorial in recognition of the joint nature of the 1916 offensive and a small cemetery containing equal numbers of Commonwealth and French graves lies at the foot of the memorial. The memorial, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, was built between 1928 and 1932 and unveiled by the Prince of Wales, in the presence of the President of France, on 31 July 1932. The dead of other Commonwealth countries who died on the Somme and have no known graves are commemorated on national memorials elsewhere.

William Charles Baggarley

Born: 1894 -  Camberwell, Surrey.
Died: 1915 - Gallipoli, Turkey.

William was born in Camberwell, where his father was an Insurance agent. But sometime after 1901 and before 1911 the whole family moved to Chichester where William worked as an assistant in his father's refreshment bar.

However William, who had attended the National School, Camberwell, emigrated on his own to Melbourne, Victoria, Australia at the age of 20 and enlisted, on 12 January 1915, as a Private, regimental number 1909, with the 6th Battalion, 5th Regiment in the Australian Army.

They embarked from Melbourne, aboard the HMAT A20 Horaorata, on 17th April 1915 for Gallipoli in Egypt where William, now aged 21, was killed in action on 7th August that same year and is buried in the Shrapnal Valley Cemetery, Anzac, Plot II, Row A, Grave 44. William is listed on Panel 45 of the Australian War Memorial.

Passenger transcript details
Name: Mr W Baggarley
Date of departure: 17 June 1914
Port of departure: London
Passenger destination port: Melbourne, Australia
Passenger destination: Melbourne, Australia

Date of Birth: 1894
Age: 20
Marital status:
Sex: Male
Occupation: Farm Student
Passenger recorded on: Page 12 of 25

The following is taken from the Aldingbourne Parish Magazine of October 1915; below the list of Regulars, Reservists and Recruits:-

William Charles Baggarley, the second son of Mr and Mrs J Baggarley of Norton, who was 21 years of age last March, emigrated to Melbourne, Australia, in June 1914. On reaching the Colony he became a member of the Y.M.C.A.

Volunteers being called for, to fight for the mother country, he enrolled with the 6th Batt, of the 5th Reinforcement, Australian Imperial Forces, and with members of the Young Men's Christian Association, formed a part of H.M. Mediterranean Expeditionary Force in Egypt. On leaving Australia he had a good send off, and was presented with a copy of the New Testament.

He did his training at Heliopolis and Cairo in Egypt and was soon promoted to the rank of lance-corporal. On completion of training, his battalion sailed from Alexandria on August 1st, 1915, and landed on the Gallipoli peninsula, when they immediately went into the fighting line, suffering very serverly in killed and wounded. Among those who fell in action on this memorable 7th August, 1915, appeared the name William C. Baggarley.

In a letter to his mother just before his death, William told her not to worry about him, for he was only doing his duty in fighting for the Old Country, as every loyal Englishman should do, and if he should fall, it would be in a just cause, and death would have no terror for him.